Boots & Sabers

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Category: Politics – Texas

State of Texas Takes Over Houston School District For Chronic Poor Performance

Git ‘er dun. It’s good to see consequences for chronic failure. I hope that they can make swift improvements for the betterment of the kids.

Texas law authorizes the appointment of a Board of Managers based on the district’s inability to improve student achievement at its low-performing campuses. In particular, Wheatley High School earned seven consecutive unacceptable academic ratings for the school years from 2011 through 2019. For the 2021-2022 school year, Wheatley earned an acceptable academic rating, driven by an increase in the award of Microsoft Office Specialist Word certifications among graduating seniors.

 

However, Wheatley’s acceptable rating this year does not abrogate my prior legal requirement to intervene based on the seven consecutive unacceptable ratings that were addressed by the original Board of Managers order.

 

Furthermore, while Wheatley was earning seven years of unacceptable academic performance ratings, multiple other campuses received inadequate district support leading to persistently poor performance. To note one example, Kashmere High School had eight consecutive unacceptable academic ratings starting in the 2008-2009 school year. In 2016, I appointed a conservator to ensure and oversee district-level support for Kashmere. As a result of that intervention, Kashmere finally earned an acceptable academic rating for the 2018-2019 school year. However, while the
injunction was in place—which limited the authority of the previously placed conservator— Kashmere High School’s performance regressed, as it received a “Not Rated” accountability rating for the 2021-2022 school year with a scale score of 68 out of 100. To note another example, Highland Heights Elementary School has not earned an acceptable performance rating since 2011.

 

The district’s approach to supporting students with disabilities also continues to violate state and federal law. Starting with internal reviews going back to 2011, there has long been recognition from Houston ISD itself of problems in this area. Substantive action was not taken until a management team of conservators was appointed. Since then, Houston ISD has seen some improvements related to basic Child Find obligations. But there are still significant systemic compliance problems, including an ongoing inability to provide special education services to students without delays, which harms their academic progress

Texas Bans TikTok from State Devices

Is Wisconsin going to protect state systems from Chinese hackers?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed state agencies on Wednesday to ban the use of social media platform TikTok on government-issued devices over concerns about how the China-owned app handles data on American infrastructure and other sensitive information.

 

“TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices — including when, where and how they conduct internet activity — and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government,” Abbott said in a letter to state officials on Wednesday.

 

TikTok has faced growing scrutiny from state and federal officials over fears that American data could fall into the possession of the Chinese government.

Battle for Texas

I love how the Leftist media continues to hype Beto. You can see the problem right here… he’s being introduced by celebrities – two New Yorkers and a Brit – who have little connection to Texas or their issues.

Beto O’Rourke stood in the middle of a music hall in Houston, Texas, surrounded by cheering supporters.

He had been introduced by Hamilton musical creator Lin Manuel Miranda and can count pop star Harry Styles and actor Matthew Broderick among his backers.

 

A former congressman from the border town of El Paso, Mr O’Rourke, 50, stands for everything liberal America wants: gun control, abortion rights, ‘racial justice’ for minorities and a plan for tackling climate change.

Long tipped as a rising star on the Democratic left – despite a failed 2018 Senate run – Mr O’Rourke now has his sights on another high-profile office.

 

But to become governor of Texas, he’ll have to get by the sitting Republican, Greg Abbott – a man who could not be more different.

Seeking his third four-year term, the 65-year-old may not have Mr O’Rourke’s celebrity endorsements, but he is a political powerhouse in his own right. He won re-election four years ago by double-digits and is the best political fund-raiser in Texas history.

 

The Abbott agenda is Mr O’Rourke’s opposite. Instead of abortion, guns and the environment, he focuses on rising undocumented immigration numbers and violent crime rates. He blames a national economy that is sputtering under high inflation on Democratic President Joe Biden’s policies.

DC Declares Emergency Over Illegal Aliens

Note that DC is getting a microscopic fraction of the millions of illegal aliens that the Biden Administration is allowing to invade our southern border. Border states have been dealing with much, much worse for much, much longer.

WashingtonCNN — 

Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public health emergency on Thursday in response to the thousands of migrants arriving in the nation’s capital by bus from Arizona and Texas.

Bowser announced in a news conference a new government office tasked with the local response to arriving migrants that will also support new arrivals who are seeking asylum.

[…]

As of Thursday, the Texas governor’s office had sent more than 7,900 migrants on over 190 buses to the District, more than 2,200 migrants on over 40 buses to New York City, and more than 300 migrants on over five buses to Chicago.

[…]

Arizona, which is only sending buses to DC, has sent 46 buses carrying 1,677 migrants.

Adams Whines About Impact of Leftist Policies

Those illegal aliens show up in Texas unannounced. Nobody is coordinating their arrival with authorities. Why should it be any different if they show up in NYC?

Abbott and Adams spoke with “Nightline” co-anchor Byron Pitts in interviews that aired on Wednesday, where Adams criticized the Republican governor for not coordinating the arrivals of migrants with NYC officials and Abbott doubled down on his policy to bus migrants out of Texas.

 

“We’ve got to secure our border because the Biden administration is not securing it,” Abbott said. “And then the reason why we began putting people on buses in the first place is because the Biden administration, they were literally dumping migrants off in small little towns of 10 or 25,000 people, and they were completely overwhelmed.”

 

Meanwhile, Adams criticized Abbott for not coordinating with NYC officials as buses of migrants arrived over the past two weeks.

Texas Increases Exports to D.C.

This has been happening all over America. The only news here is that Abbott’s move forced everyone to see it.

A bus from Texas arrived in Washington, D.C. Wednesday morning, transporting dozens of illegal immigrants as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s new plan to counter federal immigration policies during an ongoing border crisis.

 

Abbott announced last week that he was directing the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) to transport migrants released from federal custody in Texas to the nation’s capital and other locations outside his state.

 

The bus pulled up at approximately 8 a.m. local time, blocks away from the U.S. Capitol building. Fox News has learned that they came from the Del Rio sector in Texas, after coming to the U.S. from Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

 

Upon the bus’s arrival in Washington, D.C., individuals disembarked one by one except for family units who exited together. They checked in with officials and had wristbands they were wearing cut off before being told they could go.

Texas Supreme Court Strikes Final Blow to Challenge to Abortion Restrictions

Excellent. Now do it in Wisconsin.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas abortion providers on Friday conceded a final blow to their best hope of stopping the nation’s most restrictive abortion law after a new ruling ended what little path forward the U.S. Supreme Court had left for clinics.

 

The decision by the Texas Supreme Court, which is entirely controlled by Republicans, spelled the coming end to a federal lawsuit that abortion clinics filed even before the restrictions took effect in September, but were then rejected at nearly every turn afterward.

 

“There is nothing left, this case is effectively over with respect to our challenge to the abortion ban,” said Marc Hearron, attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which led the challenge against the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8.

Although Texas abortion clinics are not dropping the lawsuit, they now expect it will be dismissed in the coming weeks or months.

 

The Texas law bans abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy and makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Abortions in Texas have plummeted by more than 50% since the law took effect.

Democrats Struggle to Make Headway in Texas

Ha

If fact, Democrats haven’t won any statewide elections in that long, and there have been about 100 of them during that time.

By way of illustration, an online site for lottery players puts the odds of someone matching three of the six numbers in a Texas Lotto drawing at about one in 75. The payout for hitting three of six is a modest $3. But it still means a Texas Democrat has a better chance of winning at least part of the Lotto jackpot than he or she has of getting elected statewide.

And that begs the question, why can Democrats win at least sometimes in red states but not in Texas?

There’s not a one-size-fits-all answer, but there are some clues. And, like the Lotto analogy, evidence suggests that a little luck is often involved.

I remember growing up in Texas when Democrats were regularly elected statewide. And in some parts, like East Texas, one couldn’t get elected without being a Democrat. Back then, Democrats still loved God, guns, law & order, and fought for the little guy. Those Democrats are not today’s Democrats. I’d suggest that Texas has not gotten more conservative or Republican. If anything, it has drifted a bit left. But the Democrats have gone so far left that they can’t win in a majority of the state.

Texas Uses State Laws to Enforce Borders

When the Federal government fails in a primary duty to protect the border, states have to protect their own.

The men assumed they had been detained by immigration officers for illegally crossing into the United States. They were wrong. Instead, they were arrested on charges of trespassing on a vast private ranch by highway patrol officers from the Texas state police.

 

For several months, Texas has been engaged in an effort to repurpose the tools of state law enforcement to stem the sudden increase of people crossing illegally into the country.

 

To do this, Texas officials led by Gov. Greg Abbott developed a way around the fact that immigration enforcement is a federal government job: State and local police departments partner with the owners of borderland ranches and use trespassing laws to arrest migrants who cross their land.

 

“That’s an effective way of sending a message,” Abbott said, flanked by nine other Republican governors, at a news conference along the border this fall. “If you come into the state of Texas illegally, you have a high likelihood of not getting caught and released, but instead, arrested and jailed.”

 

The new approach relies on the participation of local officials and, so far, it has been adopted in two of the state’s 32 border region counties: Kinney, which includes Brackettville, and Val Verde, its neighbor to the west.

 

[…]

 

Seated on the oak-shadowed patio of their ranch, a few head of cattle walking slowly nearby, Bill and Carolyn Conoly said the situation this year was the worst they could remember.

 

“We’re constantly repairing,” Conoly said, referring to ranch fences that are bent or cut. “We keep the doors locked, and I have a gun available.”

 

Motion-activated cameras on the ranch capture images of passing migrants, information that helps the state police locate them. Earlier that day, cameras had picked up a large group walking through the Conoly family ranch; police caught up with the migrants at night on an adjacent ranch — 14 men and one woman.

Lot of single men…

Beto Runs for Governor of Texas

This should be entertaining to watch.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrat Beto O’Rourke is running for governor of Texas, pursuing a blue breakthrough in America’s biggest red state after his star-making U.S. Senate campaign in 2018 put him closer than anyone else in decades.

 

O’Rourke’s announcement Monday kicks off a third run for office in as many election cycles. He burst into the 2020 Democratic presidential primary as a party phenomenon but dropped out just eight months later as money and fanfare dried up.

 

[…]

 

O’Rourke, 49, will have to win over not only hundreds of thousands of new voters but some of his old ones. When O’Rourke lost to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by just 2.5 percentage points, Abbott won reelection by double digits that same year, reflecting a large number of Texans who voted for O’Rourke and for the GOP governor.

 

That crossover appeal was a hallmark of a Senate campaign propelled by energetic rallies, ideological blurriness and unscripted livestreams on social media. But as a presidential candidate, O’Rourke molded himself into a liberal champion who called for slashing immigration enforcement and mandatory gun buybacks.

That last paragraph is an interesting lens into the reporter’s bias. While they tout Beto’s crossover appeal in attracting Abbot voters, the reverse is equally true. Abbot won a lot of voters who voted for Beto in a Democratic wave year.

Texas Abortion Law Remains in Effect

The process continues.

The law, which went into effect on Sept. 1, was briefly paused after a federal judge issued a temporary injunction last week barring its enforcement. Days later, the law was reinstated after a panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary administrative stay.

 

In the latest development of the high-profile case, the court rejected the Justice Department’s request to again halt Texas’ ability to enforce the law. In a 2-1 order Thursday night, a panel of judges granted Texas’s request to continue to stay the preliminary injunction while it pursues its appeal.

 

The court’s order did not detail its reasoning behind the ruling, which is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Appeals Court Sets Aside Lower Court Ruling to Allow Texas’ Abortion Law to Be Enforced

Excellent. This will go through a number of advances and reversals, but hopefully ends with an affirmation that babies are humans endowed with inalienable rights who deserve to be protected.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal appeals court Friday night quickly allowed Texas to resume banning most abortions, just one day after clinics began racing to serve patients again for the first time since early September.

 

A one-page order by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the nation’s strictest abortion law, which bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks. It makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

 

“Patients are being thrown back into a state of chaos and fear,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents several Texas clinics that had briefly resumed normal abortion services.

She called on the U.S. Supreme Court to “step in and stop this madness.”

 

Clinics had braced for the New Orleans-based appeals court to act fast after U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, on Wednesday suspended the Texas law that he called an “offensive deprivation” of the constitutional right to an abortion. Knowing that order might not stand long, a handful of Texas clinics immediately started performing abortions again beyond six weeks, and booked new appointments for this weekend.

 

But barely 48 hours passed before the appeals court accepted Texas’ request to set aside Pitman’s ruling — at least for now — pending further arguments. It gave the Biden administration, which had brought the lawsuit, until Tuesday to respond.

Texas Passes Fetal Heartbeat Law to Protect Babies

Wonderful news.

A law banning abortion from as early as six weeks into pregnancy has come into effect in the US state of Texas.

 

It bans abortions after the detection of what anti-abortion campaigners call a foetal heartbeat, something medical authorities say is misleading.

 

The law, one of the most restrictive in the country, took effect after the Supreme Court did not respond to an emergency appeal by abortion providers.

Doctors and women’s rights groups have heavily criticised the law.

 

It gives any individual the right to sue doctors who perform an abortion past the six-week point.

 

The so-called “Heartbeat Act” was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in May.

Texas Gets Closer to More Secure Elections

While Wisconsin’s governor is supporting cheating, Texas is getting closer to better elections.

Democrats, who acknowledge they cannot permanently stop the GOP voting bill from passing because of Republicans’ dominance in both chambers of the Texas Legislature, responded to the warrants with new shows of defiance. One turned up in a Houston courtroom and secured a court order aimed at preventing him from being forced to return to the Capitol.

 

The NAACP also stepped in on behalf of the Texas Democrats, urging the Justice Department to investigate whether a federal crime was being committed when Republicans threatened to have them arrested.

 

Refusing to attend legislative sessions is a violation of House rules — a civil offense, not a criminal one, leaving the power the warrants carry to get Democrats back to the chamber unclear, even for the Republicans who invoked it. Democrats would not be jailed. Republican Travis Clardy, who helped negotiate an early version of the voting bill that Democrats first stopped with a walkout in May, said he believes Democrats can be physically brought back to the Capitol.

 

State Rep. Jim Murphy, who leads the Texas House Republican Caucus, said while he has not seen a situation like this play out during his tenure, his understanding is that officers could go to the missing lawmakers and ask them to come back.

 

“I am hoping they will come because the warrants have been issued and they don’t want to be arrested,” Murphy said. “It is incredible to me that you have to arrest people to do the job they campaigned for, for which they took an oath of office to uphold the Texas Constitution.”

Texas Democrats “Pissed off” that Biden Hasn’t Met with Them

Perhaps Biden does still have his wits about him… or Mrs. Biden does.

But they still await the biggest get of all: President Joe Biden. And on Thursday, they expressed frustration over the White House’s apparent disinterest in scheduling a meeting with members of the Texas group.

 

During a Zoom conversation with U.S. Rep Lloyd Doggett of Austin, state Rep. Richard Peña Raymond of Laredo vented about the holdup.

 

“He won’t meet with us on Zoom like this, and I’m trying to be tactful, but I don’t know how else to say it, man. I’m just pissed off at this point. He doesn’t give us the respect the way you have,” Raymond told Doggett.

 

And in a subsequent Zoom meeting with Beto O’Rourke, in which the former Democratic congressman and presidential candidate announced a $600,000 donation to help pay for the Washington sojourn, O’Rourke encouraged them to ramp up pressure on the White House.

 

“I feel very strongly about this. I think you need to center and focus all of your effort on the president,” O’Rourke said.

Texas Passes Constitutional Carry

Washington (CNN)Texans will soon be able to carry handguns in public without obtaining licenses or training after the state’s Republican governor on Wednesday signed a permitless carry gun bill into law.

The measure approved by Gov. Greg Abbott allows individuals 21 and older who can legally possess firearms in the state to carry handguns in public places without permits. The legislation is set to go into effect in September.

Texas to Defend Border

What a shame that Texas state taxpayers have to shoulder the burden of border defense for the rest of the country.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday he will soon unveil plans for the construction of a wall along the state’s shared border with Mexico as part of a slew of actions meant to address an ongoing immigration crisis.

 

“The ability to arrest will be enhanced by building border barriers. Some of these border barriers will be built immediately, and whenever anybody tries to modify, attempt, or get through any of these border barriers, that in itself is a crime for which they can be arrested,” Abbott said. “But, on top of that, I will announce next week the plan for the state of Texas to begin building the border wall.”

“you can’t tell a kid they should feel shame because of the color of their skin.”

Good for Texas

Toth’s bill, which has passed in both chambers of the Texas Legislature and is headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for signature into law, states that social studies and civics teachers are not allowed to discuss the concept that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” or the idea that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.”

 

The bill also states that teachers cannot be compelled to talk about current events, and if they do, they must “give deference to both sides.” While supporters say this provision promotes objective teaching, critics counter that it limits honest conversation around the deep-rooted issues surrounding the history of race and racism in the U.S.

 

“The more people learn about critical race theory, whether Republican or Democrat, the more they oppose it,” said Toth, who noted that he is also a preacher, and said God led him to write this bill limiting the teaching of what he termed “an offshoot of critical theory and Marxism.”

 

Yet he also said his bill wouldn’t prevent a discussion about critical race theory, but would prevent teachers from endorsing what he sees as its conclusions.

 

“We’re not saying you can’t talk about critical race theory,” he added. “We’re saying you can’t tell a kid they should feel shame because of the color of their skin.”

Republicans Stand Up for Police and the Voters Reward Them at the Polls

Something to learn here. Despite the radical rhetoric of a few, the vast majority of Americans support their police.

Eleven Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives, most of them from the Rio Grande Valley, voted with Republican lawmakers last Friday to approve a bill that was crafted in response to the City of Austin’s police budget cuts last year.

 

HB 1900 would trigger disannexation elections in parts of any city with a population of more than 250,000, in the event that the governor’s office designated the city a “defunding municipality.” The bill would also allow the state comptroller to withhold sales taxes owed to a “defunding” city and redirect it to the Department of Public Safety.

 

Those measures would make it difficult for Austin to move forward with aspects of its ongoing Reimagining Public Safety process, and could even pressure the city council to roll back cuts made to the police budget last year.

 

Politically, the vote on HB 1900 signals an emerging divide between Progressive Democrats in the larger cities of Texas and more centrist Democrats in south Texas. Republicans made significant inroads in the Rio Grande Valley in the 2020 election, improving their standing in national races, though state legislative seats in the region are still held by long-serving Democrats.

 

[…]

 

Looking ahead to the 2022 midterm election, Republican leaders are hoping to use police funding again as a wedge issue. During floor debate, Rep. Craig Goldman (R-Fort Worth), the lead author of HB 1900, described it repeatedly as “the pro-police, Back the Blue bill.” Likewise, Raymond framed the bill as an election issue, cautioning fellow Democrats, “Understand, politically, that if you don’t vote for this bill it could be misinterpreted that you are not strong on law enforcement.”

 

“Absolutely, I’d use it against you. I’d use it against you in a heartbeat,” he said. “So expect that if you (vote against it). It’s a redistricting year. Some of the districts are going to change up. And issues will come up, they just will. So think about that a little bit.”

 

Judging by the vote counts on HB 1900 and a similar bill in the senate, SB 23, that message seems to be sinking in. Democrats in both chambers of the legislature—particularly those who represent majority Hispanic constituencies in the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, and Houston—increasingly appear wary of falling into a GOP trap  by opposing so-called “Back the Blue” legislation.

Texas Ends Federal Unemployment Enhancement

Wisconsin needs to follow the lead of the 17 states that have done this.

Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that Texas will end federal pandemic-related unemployment assistance, more than two months earlier than it was set to expire, fueling the debate over whether benefits are contributing to labor shortages as the economic recovery accelerates.

 

The move was praised by employers, who have complained that supplemental federal benefits of $300 a week are leading some workers to stay at home rather than take jobs as they ramp up for the post-COVID recovery. Economists, however, had downplayed the impact of additional benefits that helped people pay bills and keep food in the fridge, saying the reasons for reported labor shortages are myriad and complex.

 

Texas joins at least 16 other states that have elected to opt out of federal unemployment programs before their expiration in September. Additional benefits in Texas would end June 26.

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